


Lazy Days

by still_intrepid



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Humour, Oxford, Silly, punting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 07:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2460236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_intrepid/pseuds/still_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's counter-intuitive, you see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lazy Days

**Author's Note:**

> ... originally posted in the [desperate creators](http://desp-creators.livejournal.com/) comm back in 2005! *nostalgic memories of [desperatefans](http://desperatefans.livejournal.com/)*
> 
> For those unfamiliar with the noble occupation of punting, a diagram:  
> 

It was an uncannily sunny day in Oxford in early July, and Crowley and Aziraphale were feeding the ducks in University Parks. Crowley and Aziraphale both rather liked Oxford. They’d both had a hand in the high and illustrious history of the city too: Aziraphale had helped found the university, Crowley had masterminded the one-way traffic system and ensured that the High Street was dug up every couple of months for no apparent reason.

There were good ducks in Oxford: not as worldly as their connoisseur London cousins, but discerning enough in their own way. They knew their bakery 8-grain from their Sainsbury’s own brand. If the ducks in the duck pond at University Parks had been listening to the two casual food-dispensers on the bank, they would have heard a conversation that went like this:

I don't know if I've ever been punting, said Aziraphale.

Forgetful of you, said Crowley.

I mean - I haven't, said Aziraphale.

Ah, said Crowley. Me neither, actually.

Would you like to go tomorrow? said Crowley.

Well I don't know, said Aziraphale, I mightn't be very good at it.

Oh _anyone_ can _punt_ , said Crowley, it's really easy.

Really easy, said Crowley, I mean, how hard can it be?

Aziraphale said: Mm.

It did sound a lot like Standard Temptation, he had to admit, but then he thought: no, really, what could go wrong?

 

* * *

 

"Of course we should wear life jackets!"

"No one else is."

"That is certainly not the point.”

"No," said Crowley, "the point is it’s bloody impossible to capsize a punt! Besides, in case it had escaped your notice for the last millennia, we’re not about to die."

"We should set a good example though."

"You go ahead then."

"One punt please," said Aziraphale to man behind the counter. "And," - sigh -, "one life jacket."

The man peered at him. “You a non-swimmer, sir?”

“A what? Oh, no no, I can swim..." He gave a Look to Crowley, who was sniggering.

The man grunted and dug around in the seldom-fathomed depths of Below Counter to produce a luminous yellow life jacket. At least, the jacket _had_ been luminous yellow. Now it was about half-and-half yellow and unmentionable slime colour. Aziraphale took it gingerly.

"You pay for the punt on yer return. There's a fifty pound deposit now."

"Oh, right..." said the angel, and looked at Crowley hopefully.

"Yes al _right_ ," said Crowley and gave the man one crisp banknote.

"Fifty pounds??" hissed Aziraphale as they walked out to the boats.

"Not a bad deal for a punt if you ask me." Crowley shrugged. "They must cost - what, a couple hundred, thousand, at least, to buy new..."

"You are not going to steal it," said Aziraphale firmly.

Crowley sighed. "Of course not."

Aziraphale pulled the life jacket - now probably more clean and shiny than it had ever been and complete with a light and a whistle for attracting attention - over his head.

"You look ridiculous."

" _You’re_ setting a bad example."

"Woe is me."

Aziraphale ignored this and walked carefully onto punt number 42. It wobbled. Crowley passed him a long pole, a paddle and a couple of cushions and then climbed aboard himself. The punt wobbled some more. They both shot suspicious glances at the water and then pretended not to have.

 

* * *

  
Aziraphale had always held that his side had invented punting.[1] Seeing the boats drift by under the bridges, the people relaxing, talking and laughing in the summer sunshine, reveling in the glory of creation, it had all looked so very pleasant - what could be nicer?

Fifteen minutes of going in zigzags, banging into other punts, getting the pole stuck in the mud and accidentally pushing their only paddle over the side later, he'd changed his mind.

The punt was a demonic creation designed to drive even the most patient of beings completely barmy.

He told Crowley this.

Crowley, who was reclining on the cushions the middle of the punt, legs crossed, arms behind his head, just smiled smugly and said, "Very nice. Watch out for that tree on the right, would you?"

Aziraphale plunged the pole in the water to the left of the boat and pulled. The boat took a sharper turn to the right and into the tree.

"Oh _dear_ ," said Aziraphale with furrowed brows and considerably more feeling than most people could put into the word. He thought for a moment. "Oh - physics," he murmured. "Fine."

"Doing alright there, are you?"

"Yes yes, it's all going _splendidly_ , thank you!"

"I'd help," said Crowley, "you know, with the paddle, but - oh yes, you knocked it overboard back by the bridge, didn't you?"

Aziraphale sighed. "I think you may be enjoying this rather too much."

"I thought that was the point of this joyous afternoon!"

The boat wobbled violently, causing Crowley's hand to fly to his designer sunglasses. "Um, is that supposed to happen?"

"The pole's stuck again!"

"Well, get it unstuck!"

"I can't -" Aziraphale tugged at it, to no effect. "It's _stuck_ stuck!"

There was a short silence. The punt drifted onwards. The pole remained vertical, stuck in the mud some distance away. Crowley waved a fond goodbye to it.

"There it goes. Want another?" A second pole appeared in his hands.

"You can't do that," Aziraphale hissed, "someone will see! Paddle back to it!"

"But we don’t have a paddle..." said Crowley, in a very _reasonable_ tone of voice.

"A second ago we didn't have a pole," Aziraphale pointed out, equally reasonably.

"Just take the bloody pole."

Aziraphale did, reluctantly. "I really don't think we should -- someone's bound to notice."

"Well if you hadn't let go..."

"Look, this isn’t as easy as it looks!"

"You’re making it look positively painful. And are you _shaking_ , angel? I can feel the whole boat wobbling."

"I’m concentrating."

"Could you concentrate on going in a straight line? It’s not as if it’s difficult..."

Aziraphale drew himself up and dropped the pole down once more. "I think I'm getting it now, actually."

"Oh, good-o," said Crowley, nonplussed.

They were drifting past the university buildings of Lady Margaret Hall. Some centuries past, they had had an academic debate - discussion - an argument - about the University, and education in general. Crowley had said, how could education be a _good_ thing, from Heaven’s point of view, when it encouraged humans to think for themselves? Aziraphale, looking affronted, had said that he did not appreciate that insinuation; God created humans with free will after all, and where did this idea about thinking and faith being mutually exclusive come from anyway? Crowley had suggested, uh well how about you look at the evidence then, upon which Aziraphale had gone away for a few weeks of painstaking research and returned with a long list of students who had come to faith while at the University and gone on to live useful and fulfilled lives.

Crowley had then produced a much longer list of those who had not, and who had in fact spent most of their time down the college bar.

Aziraphale had sighed and started to explain, yes but you couldn’t look at it like _that_ , because--

And _that_ had been when Aziraphale had learned to swim, because Crowley had for some reason finished the argument by shoving him into the duck pond at University Parks.

* * *

 

> **FOOTNOTES:**  
> 1\. Crowley had argued that it had been his side that invented punting, of course, for the principle of the thing. One only had to consider, he said, the lewd jokes that could be made by humans about the punt pole - that was hardly Heavenly, now was it. The thing he had neglected to mention of course is that _any_ object that is longer than it is wide can be considered broadly "phallic" by humans and is thus fair play for the right sort of mind to make bad jokes about. .   
> (back)
> 
>  

* * *

“Look, how about I show you how it’s really done?” said Crowley, a hundred metres or so further downstream.

“Be my guest,” said Aziraphale gratefully.

They changed places without capsizing the punt.

Crowley picked up the pole and affected to weigh it in his hands a few times. Thus prepared, he lifted it and plunged it down into the depths beneath. So far so good. He attempted to lift it out again...

...and failed.

"Oh, _bloody_ -"

Meanwhile, they were turning lazily around in the water and beginning to drift, against all probability, upstream again.

"Not so easy, is it?"

"If I didn't know better," growled Crowley, finally managed to tug the pole free, "I would say you were _gloating_."

"Oh no." Aziraphale looked contrite. "No, it was a - righteous rebuke. At the most. Pride cometh, and all that..."

"Whatever," grumbled Crowley, then: "Oh for -- go _right_ , you stupid boat! Aziraphale, I think you picked us a faulty punt..."

"No no," said the angel, warming considerably to the subject of punting now that he was the one comfortably reclining on the cushions, "actually, you see, if you want to go right, then you have to pull to the _left_." He beamed up at Crowley. "It's not like driving, you see. It's counter-intuitive."

Crowley, for whom physics were generally something that happened to other people, glared pointedly at the punt pole. Then he pulled it to the right. The punt veered gently to the right also.

He gave a satisfied nod. "That's more like it."

Aziraphale decided to ignore this, and looked over his shoulder. "Well, at least we're doing better than them."

A punt just in front of them appeared to be bouncing, very slowly, from bank to bank, like something out of the most pathetic pinball machine in the world. It was occupied by four bickering persons.

"Pull on your left."

DO YOU WANT TO HAVE A GO?

"No, you’re doing splendidly..."

"That's not left..."

YES IT IS.

"But we're going _right_."

"It's not like driving, you see. It's counter-intuitive."

"Yes, _I_ know that, but..."

"I thought you did this all the time. I thought you were _good_ at it."

With some difficulty, the tall figure with the punt pole disengaged it from the submerged shopping trolley it had got caught in.

I THINK YOU'LL FIND THAT'S CHARON. ENTIRELY DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH. METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING.

"Oh dear," said Aziraphale, "they're _really_ not getting the hang of it at all... Do you think they want some help?"

"Not from you,” grunted Crowley, stabbing the river-bottom viciously.

Somehow, Aziraphale and Crowley managed to glide on past the troubled punt and into a wider bit of river.

Not that it did them much good.

 

* * *

 

Half an hour later, Crowley had got through three punt poles and a good few laws of physics, and he was starting to get aggravated.

"...Oh bugger this," he said.

He threw the fifth punt pole of the day overboard and flopped down on the cushions next to Aziraphale.

"Crowley..."

"No one will notice! Just look like you're paddling or something!"

"At _forty miles an hour_? ...Oh, fine, alright then."

The angel and the demon tried to relax and enjoy the view as it flew by them at speed.

"Well!” said Aziraphale. “This is nice..."

"Yes. Very!"

There was an extended pause, approximately the size of three normal pauses stuck together.

“I think there’s a moral in here somewhere,” said Aziraphale seriously. “Something about it being no fun at all when you completely cheat and make a punt go forty miles an hour down the Isis with no visible means of propulsion."

"Nah," said Crowley.

"Well I’m at least going to stand up."

"I wouldn’t do that," said Crowley, unconvincingly, as Aziraphale did.

He spotted the sharp bend in the river too late.

SPLASH.

"I thought you said it was impossible to capsize a punt!!" Aziraphale splorfled, bobbing up and down in the cold water, clutching the luminous yellow life jacket to his chest.

"We haven't capsized!" said Crowley, cheerily, from the punt. "You've just fallen in, that's all. Threw yourself in, really... _I_ managed to stay on board."

There was another splash, and a pause, and then Crowley surfaced, splorfling incredulously.

"Eugh! Eugh, duck crap on my shirt!!" He glared at Aziraphale. "And if I didn't know better I would call that _revenge_ ," he said.

"Never!" Aziraphale looked plainly scandalized and also, to Crowley anyway, slightly smug. "That, my dear, was _justice_ truly served."

**Author's Note:**

> (Uh, yeah, that's a faintly obscure Tom Stoppard reference there, I'd just read _The Invention of Love_ , I assume! Also I'd just been punting so various bits of dialogue were lifted verbatim from real life XD)


End file.
